


Roles

by molegria



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/M, Family Dynamics, Frohana, Gen, Ice Bros - Freeform, Mourning, One-Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Frozen (2013), snow sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 15:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13743816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molegria/pseuds/molegria
Summary: He doesn't understand why they would choose such an emotional day for this. Then again, Kristoff doesn't understand many things about royal protocols and the high society. Heck, he doesn't understand many things about society as a whole, and yet here he is wearing a three-piece suit to a statue unveiling ceremony, his first official function as Anna's consort.





	Roles

**Author's Note:**

> Frozen belongs to Disney yadda yadda you know the drill.

On his fourth try, Kristoff gets the cravat right. Sort of. It's still lopsided and the knot could look tidier, but at least it no longer looks like a little girl's sash bow. He checks himself in the full-length mirror, adjusting the frills on the white shirt under the low-cut vest and running his hands over the frock coat. The suit is tighter than Kristoff would like. He rolls his shoulders and pulls at the starched-stiff collar, feeling the wool strain across his back and around his joints. Apart from the shirt, the outfit is remarkably black. He looks like a penguin.

 

Someone knocks at the door. "Come in," he says.

 

Anna closes the door behind her, her satin skirts swishing as she walks towards him. She had a French-style dress made for the occasion, complete with bell sleeves, a tight-laced corset ending in a V, and a wide skirt over several layers of petticoats. The black fabric of her clothes shines even under the soft light from the windows; it makes her look too pale for his liking, older than her eighteen years of age.

 

"What do you think?" he asks, opening his arms.

 

Anna checks him from head to toe, tapping her chin. She's just messing with him, but he can't help the cold twist in his stomach as he turns around.

 

"The cravat could be better," she decides with a little smirk. Moving closer to adjust it, she adds matter-of-factly, "and your fly's open."

 

"Of course," he grumbles, fumbling with the front of his (unnecessarily tight) pants as she stifles a laugh.

 

She ends up undoing the knot he'd made, straightening the fabric and passing it around his neck again. Her small hands measure the ends of the cravat, deciding on a knot style. He takes advantage of her closeness to check on her as well: the smell of her perfume, the shimmer of her delicate jewelry, the way the pearl powder can't conceal the freckles on her bare shoulders nor the dark circles under her eyes. "How are you?" he whispers.

 

She looks up at him briefly before letting out a sigh and undoing the knot on the cravat (it was lopsided again). "Elsa froze her speech," she mumbles, lifting an eyebrow. "Like, the piece of paper. I said to her, 'never mind, you know the whole thing by heart anyway,' but she was like, 'oh no, I have to write it down,' and so she's writing it all down again. I had to get out of there before I screamed. She's ridiculous." She tries adding a little laugh at the end for good measure, but it fits like Kristoff's new shoes: not quite.

 

He holds one of her wrists and nudges her face up by the chin. "I said 'how are you,' not 'how is Elsa'."

 

She lets go of the cravat and rests her hands on his chest, lips shaped into a rose-tinted 'O'. It makes Kristoff wonder if he's been the first person to ask her that. "Well, it's nothing new to me, right?" She shrugs and hides behind another laugh. "I mean, it's been three years. It's never fun, but you get used to it, I suppose. Sure, this time there's the statue thing, but..." She sighs. "I'm just worried about her. And about you, under the scrutiny of the court vultures."

 

He places his hands around her waist, looking into her eyes. If he stretched his thumbs just a little, he could span her midriff between his palms. "Don't worry about me," he tells her with a soothing smile. "And don't worry about Elsa either. She'll be fine. Maybe she'll freeze the medals, but she knows how to unfreeze things now."

 

She smiles back at him. It's not the brightest of smiles, but it's not a day for that kind.

 

"Anyway," she sighs again, tightening his cravat much more than he'd done and giving it a few more twists and fluffs before turning him to the mirror. _Now_ it looks very much like a little girl's sash bow, but Anna (hopefully) knows what she's doing. She holds onto his arm and they stuff their chests and lift their chins, posing like a respectable couple. "Let's go through the rules again."

 

Kristoff rolls his eyes. "No kissing, no hugging, no grabbing, no tickling," he repeats in a monotonous voice, then grabs her by the waist and pulls her against him. "So let's do all these before we have to leave."

 

Anna giggles against his lips and starts to melt into the kiss, but her senses kick in and she pats his chest to make him stop. "Let's—let's not," she cleans her throat and pulls away, smoothing the front of her clothes. "Also, one more thing..." She adjusts the medal of honor on his left lapel, the one Elsa gave him for his vague "services to the crown". "Don't... make me laugh while we're there, ok? I know you want to cheer me up, and I could use some cheering up, but..." She grimaces. "All these foreign officials and reporters will be there, and they're always just waiting for something to go wrong, and I already tend to laugh when I'm nervous, and I just..."

 

Kristoff chuckles and kisses her forehead. "I'll save it for when you're back from the cemetery," he promises, offering her his arm. "Ready?"

 

Anna takes his arm and they both look at the mirror again. They make a nice pair of penguins, Kristoff thinks. "Ready," she answers, letting out another heavy sigh.

 

 

 

 

When they reach the front hall, Elsa is already there, standing by the main doors with her freshly-rewritten speech in her hands. She wavers slightly, transferring her weight from one leg to the other.

 

Unlike Anna, she wears the more slender Arendellian shape: the black lace trim on the neckline of her dress creeps up her neck, and small rosemaling patterns appear on the brocade velvet of her black skirt as she moves. Elsa's hair is braided around her head in the Northern style, while Anna's braids hang in loops that end on a bun, like the it-girls portrayed in the fashion catalogs. Together, they convey respect for their domestic traditions while extending a hand to their international partners. Even their smallest details seem to be politically calculated and measured and overanalyzed. It's madness, but Anna and Elsa were born into it. Kristoff has agreed to become a part of it out of his own free will, so he's in no position to talk about anyone's sanity.

 

"It's the rain," Kai answers the question nobody's asked, adding that they should wait inside while the carriage is brought to the doors. It's a 10-minute walk from the castle to the port, but it would be "undignified" for the royal entourage to be seen arriving by foot and under a drizzle. At least Kristoff knows Anna thinks it's stupid, too. It strengthens his decision to put up with these things for her.

 

The sound of hooves alerts them to the arrival of the carriage. They walk out into the humid October morning, servants holding umbrellas over their heads for the few short steps it takes them to reach the vehicle. Elsa goes in first, then Anna (it takes her a while to maneuver her skirts); Kristoff goes in last and takes the back seat, facing the girls. It's warm and dry inside, though he has to sit at an angle so his knees won't knock on theirs.

 

Elsa's shoulders drop with a sigh as soon as the carriage door is closed. She remains quiet, clutching Anna's hand between hers and looking out the window. Patches of light sky break through the dense clouds. Kristoff hopes the rain will have stopped by the time they reach their destination.

 

"So," he starts, breaking the silence. "What exactly is going to happen? I mean, I'm guessing there's a script for the whole thing."

 

"Well, we take the stage, Elsa makes her speech, her and I do the big reveal, and then we hand out the medals and that's it. Right?" Anna looks at Elsa for confirmation and she nods. "As for you, you just have to stand there and look pretty," she shrugs.

 

"And bring you the rope," he adds.

 

"And bring us the rope," Anna repeats.

 

Kristoff huffs, watching the water droplets flowing back on the window pane as the vehicle moves. He's used to having well-defined roles in his life, with clear instructions and simple, but often vital tasks: cut the ice, pull the plow, keep extremities warm at all costs, climb this hill, collect this crystal. Now, as a future member of the royal family, his sole requirement has been a blurred "behave": follow our arbitrary rules, don't say or do anything that might get you in our definition of trouble. Stand there and look pretty. His actual role in this event is limited to bringing the rope for the royal sisters to unveil the statue, and he is holding onto it for dear life.

 

"I had a nightmare, you know," Elsa speaks at last. "I dreamt I pulled on the rope and the statue toppled over me."

 

Kristoff raises his eyebrows. "I... don't think that's possible."

 

"It isn't. It's bolted to the pedestal," she laughs nervously. "I just can't stop thinking of everything that could go wrong."

 

Anna rolls her eyes and nudges her sister with her shoulder.

 

"Have you seen it? The statue?" The girls answer "yes" and "no" at the same time, then share a look and stifle a laugh.

 

"Just the designs," says Anna. "I didn't want to spoil the surprise, unlike her Majesty here."

 

"I took a peek when they were installing it to make sure it was perfect," says Elsa. "Father always complained that portrait artists never got his nose right."

 

The carriage comes to a halt. "Did they get it right this time?" Kristoff asks.

 

Elsa smiles as the door on her side is opened. "They did, thankfully."

 

When she steps out, she's Queen Elsa of Arendelle.

 

 

 

 

The crowd is small; few citizen-penguins have been brave enough to face the cold, gloomy morning. The men are closing their umbrellas and the women are shaking water off their heavy shawls. The only children are those standing under the canopy at the front, among the other guests of honor — family and friends of the other victims, he guesses.

 

A murmur rolls over the people at the sight of the Queen. Kristoff wonders how many of them have connected her arrival to the fact that the rain has just stopped, like magic. (Nobody will say it out loud, of course. Her parents were also on that boat.)

 

The crowd splits in half for them to pass and the Queen walks ahead, leading the royal entourage. She is followed closely by Princess Anna, the heir presumptive to the throne of Arendelle; behind her comes Kristoff, alone. He glances back at Kai and the rest of the servants. If he stalled for three or four steps he could line up with them, but Kai nods ahead, coaching him to keep walking.

 

He wishes he couldn't hear the whispers, the affably condescending opinions. "Isn't that the ice harvester," "at least he cleans up well," "at least it's not a thief," "at least it's not a murderer." It's only marginally less painful than getting kicked on the ribs for sleeping on someone's barn, or having to accept humiliating wages as an alternative to starvation. But he does his best to ignore the comments, focusing instead on the wisps of red hair that broke free of Anna's updo at her nape.

 

He doesn't understand why they would choose such an emotional day for this. Then again, Kristoff doesn't understand many things about royal protocols and the high society. Heck, he doesn't understand many things about society as a whole, and yet here he is wearing a three-piece suit to a statue unveiling ceremony, his first official function as Anna's consort.

 

(He would much rather go with her and Elsa to the cemetery afterwards. No crowds will be there; on the contrary, the place will be closed for visitors to allow the royal family a moment of privacy. They'll need that — Elsa has yet to visit their parents' graves, and who knows how she will fare. He supposes that is why he wasn't invited.)

 

The makeshift stage was built on the side of the new square closest to the waterline. Washed by the rain, the cobblestones on the promenade gleam white and pristine. The statue stands tall behind them: a mysterious mass covered by a large piece of dark purple cloth. Kristoff looks at the long line of twisted rope leading towards the pulpit and wonders how much the dampened fabric must weight.

 

As the Queen walks to the pulpit, Kai directs him and the servants to stand on a line to the right. Anna stands a couple feet ahead of them. On the other side of the stage, under the canopy, Kristoff notices one of the children pointing at something and follows the boy's finger towards the fjord. Looking up, he understands the low murmur that has taken over the crowd. 

 

_Rainbow_ , he mouths to Anna when she turns to him with a crease between her eyebrows. She and the Queen look at the sky behind them, where a shy band of colors peeks out through the clouds. Anna's shiver doesn't go unnoticed to Kristoff; he bets there are goosebumps under her sleeves.

 

A small smile plays on the Queen's face before she grows somber again. "I don't know if this has crossed your minds as well." She has her back to Kristoff, and her voice is hard to hear. She's directing her words at the families under the canopy, not to the crowd at large. "If only the skies had been like this that day." Kristoff can only guess the last part, mumbled to the ground: "How different our lives would be now."

 

She unfolds the pages of her speech, takes a look down at them, and folds them again with a slight shake of her head. Then, she extends a hand to the Princess with a pleading look. Anna looks back at the royal staff, as if Elsa would have called anyone else but her. Kai holds back a chuckle as she hurries towards her sister at the center of the stage.

 

"I come here before you today..." The Queen starts, her voice booming with regal training. "Along with my sister, Princess Anna of Arendelle..." She shares a look with Anna, squeezing her hand. "To honor the lives of those who perished at sea while returning from the Kingdom of Corona in the HMS Clementia, on this day three years ago. As you all know, among those who died that night were our parents, King Agnarr and Queen Iduna of Arendelle.

 

"I would like to thank the French embassy for this gift..." The Queen goes on, but Kristoff's attention is elsewhere. Rather than listening to Elsa's words, he follows her speech by Anna's reactions: how she crumples the black satin of her skirt between her fingers, how her weight shifts from her heels to her toes and back. How she looks down with a frown and bites her lower lip, then looks up and takes a deeper breath, eyelids fluttering. How her hand searches for the side pocket on her dress to retrieve a handkerchief. She covertly pats it on the corner of an eye, then hides it back in her pocket and forces a neutral smile upon her lips.

 

He wishes he could put his arms around her, house rules be damned. Before he can even think of taking a step forward, however, Kai touches his elbow and gives him a silent stare. This is not the time or place for a show. Anna can hold her own. Anna has held her own for the last three years. He's only supposed to stand there and look pretty, nothing else.

 

"This is what I ask of you," Elsa speaks to the audience with renewed strength in her voice. "Not as your Queen, but as a woman who could have lost so much more." She shares a look with Anna, then turns back to the crowd. "I ask you to go back home this morning and tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. For this day at least, put aside your differences, your arguments, your worries, and hold them near. Don't be afraid of loving them. Love is what kept me alive. It is what kept my sister alive. And it is love that will keep our parents, and all the victims of that tragedy, alive in our hearts and our memories."

 

The round of applause is Kristoff's cue; he glances at Kai, who gives a quick nod, then confirms it by catching Elsa's eye. Anna has her back turned to him, but he notices she's dabbing at tears with her handkerchief again.

 

He walks to the back of the stage in what he hopes look like confident strides, and picks up the rope from the ground. It's damp and cold against his fingers and leaves residues of mortar and mud on his palm. The girls pick up the end of the rope — Elsa looking calm and collected, her usual public self; Anna holding her breath, hands trembling — and pull at the fabric draped over the statue. Kristoff takes a few steps back, but doesn’t move further away. The extra weight from the rain might require an additional set of hands to do the job. But the cloth slides off easily, landing on the pavement with a wet slap.

 

A second round of applause takes over the crowd with murmurs of approval and admiration. Kristoff had never met the King and Queen, but he can see bits of Anna and Elsa on the faces of the bronze figures. And unlike many other statues, sitting on horses or pointing swords, this one feels warm and relatable. The couple stands side by side, the woman holding her husband's arm, a piece of luggage by his feet. They gaze peacefully towards the high towers of Arendelle's castle, as if the King and Queen are just arriving back home after a long and tiresome journey.

 

His attention doesn't linger on the statue. To his ears, Anna's soft whimper rings louder than all the clapping. When he turns back, she's crying on her sister's shoulder, hiding her face in her palms. Elsa gently rubs her arm and back, tears running down her cheeks as well.

 

He shifts in place and looks back at the royal staff, unsure of what to do. Kai tugs at the handkerchief in his breast pocket, reminding Kristoff that he has one, too. He offers it to Elsa, who accepts it with a shy "thank you" and dabs at her face. 

 

Kristoff is about to walk back to his place among the servants when Elsa catches his eye and shakes her head discreetly. She whispers something in Anna's ear; Anna lifts up her head, still unable to hold back her sobs, but nods anyway. "Take all the time you need," Elsa adds. The next thing Kristoff knows, it is his shoulder Anna is crying on.

 

He breathes in the citrusy scent of her hair and wraps his arms around her small frame, her shoulders quivering with three years of restrained mourning.

 

Scanning the crowd, he can see the journalists and foreign envoys jotting down notes on their pads. There will soon be tales of how "the young princess, so deeply affected by the vision of her deceased parents, wept copiously in the arms of her gentleman before the eyes of the whole crowd". But Kristoff knows better than them. He knows a statue alone would never break Anna like this. She is the Queen's rock; he doubts Elsa would have been able to give that speech if she hadn't been grasping Anna's hand like a lifeline. All this years, Anna has been strong for them both. Seeing the statue of her parents was only the last drop of water in a cup filled to the brim. That she has been able to keep it all in for so long is a testament to Anna's strength — yet it also goes to show that she was sorely lacking a rock of her own.

 

Kristoff sighs in relief, tightening his embrace. His actual role had been right in front of him all along.

 

Little by little, her sobs dwindle and her breathing returns to its normal rate. She lifts up her head and sniffs, rubbing the last tears away with her naked hands.

 

"She made it all up on the spot, the stinker," she tells him with a little laugh, a genuine one. "Caught me totally off-guard."

 

He smiles down at her, tucking a stray strand of auburn hair behind her ear.

 

"Listen," she whispers, "I know I said you didn't have to go with us to the cemetery, but..."

 

Kristoff cuts her off with a kiss on her forehead. "I'll be there," he breathes against her bangs.

 

Anna lets out a deep sigh, smoothing the front of his frock coat and adjusting his medal again. "Thank you."

 

She steps away from him and goes back to her sister's side, taking Gerda's place. The governess lays the tray of medals on her arms, and she is a princess again when she greets the elderly man receiving his honors from the Queen. Kristoff never takes his eyes off Anna as he walks back to the side of the stage, noticing the tension that still remains on her shoulders and neck. A massage will take care of it when they get back home. He might not be an elegant prince, but he knows how to care for her. This is his role. Simple, clear and vital — just the way he likes it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been mulling it over for ages, the thing about the girls being able to properly mourn their parents, and I've always felt like writing it from Kristoff's POV, from the outside. But it never seemed to materialize into an actual plot - just as a shapeless blob of feelings in the back of my head. Until one day I'm watching The Crown and there's that scene where she unveils her father's statue and I was like, "hmm".
> 
> I actually spent a lot of not-so-free time checking out early Victorian fashion to find visuals for their clothes. Anna's dress would be something like [this](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/54/80/ea/5480ea78deb083aed98f3f38e2e0133b--s-fashion-grey-dresses.jpg), but with sleeves more like [this style](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bd/21/82/bd21821db1c0bbd7e9886870bf5dd963.jpg). For Elsa I went for something a little more late-Victorian like [this one](https://i10.fotocdn.net/s25/14/public_pin_l/78/2617396493.jpg). Elsa's canon clothes are so out there that we can only assume Arendelle is very avant-garde in fashion. Finally, Kristoff would be in something like [this gentleman's garments](https://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/object/84144.html), except the suit is all black.


End file.
